


Of Fine Form

by unsettled



Category: Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 22:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5683993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unsettled/pseuds/unsettled
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a man who has intrigued him in the past, but refused to give his allegiance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Fine Form

**Author's Note:**

> For scrapbullet's "Coward is a clock-work man."

Henry has always known the value of employing clever men to fashion things for him. If he wants the best - and he always wants the best - he knows when his skills are not up to the task, and he will not cripple himself with subpar results. No, he makes the effort to find the best, and use them, to fulfill his needs. 

Some things, however, no one has been able to make. Some needs, no clever toy has been able to sate. 

He has the attention of many men, many useful men, all possessing a mix of talents he needs. But none have quite the level of loyalty, of intelligence, of obedience, that he wants. That he _needs_. 

Among other things. 

Henry recognizes this, and in the end, follows the path he has followed in the past. There are whispers, of men who deal in more than simple clockwork, who are artists and magicians as much as engineers. And they are proud, they are skilled, and they smile, a thin edge away from laughter, when he details what he is looking for. 

But they are as eager for gold as the next men, and don't tell him what he wants is impossible to create. 

There is a man who has intrigued him in the past, but refused to give his allegiance. A man with power, with connections, with a pleasing form. His existence it a frustration and a lure, and when the men ask what he wants his commission to look like, it it Lord Coward he points them to. 

It's astonishing, really, he thinks as he circles the automaton, how close it is to the original. How he can find no detail to give away that this is nothing more than gears and metal. He touches it; it is warm, pliant. It smiles at him. 

He listens carefully to the instructions they give him, the detailed care of its' parts, asks every question he think of, all the while far too aware of the way it is looking at him, watching him, an itch under his skin as its gaze follows him. But he needs to know these things, needs to know how to keep this creation as best he can.

For they laughed. They heard the things he wanted - no, they heard the thing he _needed,_ most, above all, and laughed, smiled smugly and thought to themselves, how sad, how pitiable, that Lord Blackwood must have a puppet built, to be loved. 

So they die, not quietly, blood staining his hands, spattered across the face of _his_ Lord Coward, soon to replace the unattainable original. He wipes the vivid drops from Coward's skin with the corner of his sleeve, and Coward smiles, wide, brilliant, and sways into him. Turns his face into Henry's neck, almost nuzzling, and says, cheerfully, "We're going to have such fun, aren't we?"

Henry shivers.


End file.
